Women Illustrators: http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/pcl/pcl33.html http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks/exhibitions/current.shtml Women bookbinders in 19th century: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0712304118/202-7813865-3886207 Women who organized the printing trade: http://www.mfh.org/specialprojects/shwlp/site/honorees/sullivan.html http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Kehew_Mary_Morton_Kimball.html Women printers, illustrators and book designers: http://www.princeton.edu/~rbsc/exhibitions/hands/ Emily Faithfull–typographer/publisher 1835-1895: http://www.xrefer.com/entry/172559 Women Publishers Directory: http://www.wifp.org/DWM/publishers.html Women’s National Book Association (men members, also): http://www.he.net/~susannah/wnba.htm Women Authors: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/ http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/Women-Writers.html http://www.ibiblio.org/cheryb/women/wlit.html

Q. I’ve got a book, printed in Switzerland in 1944, appears to be perfect bound, but with flimsy cardboard boards, no endpapers (not removed – they were never there). And it has a dustjacket. What do I call this binding? Flexible boards? Is there a more precise term? Julie Fauble A. Flexible binding should work fine. Limp binding seems to only apply to suede or soft leather. Joyce Godsey Q. What is the name of the plastic binding of interwoven fingers (for lack of a better term.) Not a spiral binding. Bruce (Bookends Bookstore) A. I believe you are referring to a comb binding. If the ‘plastic binding of interwoven fingers’ you described were laid flat (don’t try it, because the plastic might be too brittle for that) it would resemble a comb. Jerry Blaz Q. Can some savvy list member tell me how to change the shipping default on ABE upward? Susan Halas A. Go to Your Books. There is a new special little box at the right side of the screen that says “Adjust Shipping Rates.” Alyce Cresap Q. Hope someone can help me. Several days ago I received an order through ABE. The customer had left a card number, but when I processed it the card was declined. I emailed the buyer asking for a new card number or a check, but the customer has not responded. I would like to cancel the sale, so that I am not charged the commission. Does anyone know how to do this? Donna (The Eloquent Page) A. Recent message to me from ABE: ” To process a refund for the commission fee charged by ABEbooks, please follow the steps below: 1. Log in to your Bookseller account 2. Click on “Your sales” 3. Click on “abebooks” 4. Click on “Review and process your orders” 5. Select “abebooks” as the program and select “Processed” as the status 6. Click “List orders” 7. Find the order that needs to be refunded 8. Under “Review and process”, click “Request a Refund” (refers to commission fees) 9. Put a check mark in the box beside the item to be refunded 10. In the drop down box, select the reason for the refund i.e., “Incomplete Sale” 11. Type your exact reason in the comment box (this will be sent to the buyer) i.e., Credit card rejected 12. Click “Initiate Return” The refund for commission fees is now complete.” John and Carole Ansley Q.   I don’t usually deal in ex-library books, but have recently come across a few that were just too valuable to pass up. The dust jackets are glued to the pastedown endpapers with dirty dust sleeves covering the jackets. Do you leave the jacket glued to the endpaper and sell the book as is with a dirty dustwrapper, or do you peel the jacket off the endpages, remove the old mylar wrap and just deal with the unsightly glue marks that result from this? If so, do any of you have a good method for removing a glued dust jacket? David Peterson A. Try HEAT first. Most library adhesives react well with heat. I use a household iron and put stiff paper on top as a shield. However, others have suggested putting a quilting iron in my toolbox as it has a much smaller ‘head’. If the Rubber Cement has oxidized too much, and won’t soften, there is such a thing as Rubber Cement Thinner.  It’s hard to find – an art store may have it.  If I have to use it I sneak it onto the offending adhesive with a q-tip [remember it will melt anything plastic]. Joyce Godsey We thank all of our contributors. Jean S. McKenna, Chairman Education Committee #reference

The majority of booksellers don’t like change, we still run Windows 98 and Office 97 and won’t usually change until we absolutely have to. It’s just our way.  My little obsolete Visor Deluxe with it’s 8 megs of RAM still works fine and does just what I need. Sure, I would love online capabilities but until it becomes cost effective for me, I probably won’t upgrade.   There are two types of booksellers, those who have a PDA and those who want a PDA and right this very second there is no reason NOT to have one; a device that can do what the average bookseller would find needful costs ridiculously little second hand.  The Personal Data Assistant that was cutting edge 3 years ago is now selling on eBay as something good enough for your kids to play with (mine cost me 250 new and now sells for 50 bucks, go figure). What does a bookseller WANT from a PDA?  For those of us who have been having senior moments, since I was a senior in college, I needed a better MEMORY. Sure, I could remember a book’s title and author and ballpark value, but all the little things escaped me, like what customer asked me for it a week ago or which state dust jacket had an extra line on the back, at least until I was sitting in the car on the way home.   You would be amazed at how much data you can get in 8 megs of RAM; I have never been able to fill mine more than halfway with important stuff. (hey, all those e-books don’t count!) Sure not every bookseller wants to carry their stock list around in their pocket, but hey some of us do, as well as a shopping list, want lists, lists of pseudonyms and first edition identification info for publishers.   All that good stuff, that you hardly ever look at, except that ONE time you need to look it up and you discover that your battery ran out. PDA’S 101- abridged [If you know this part skip to the next section, show off.] PDA’s are not mini-versions of desktop computers   Small screens can’t display as much content as full-size ones. And limited OS capabilities, CPUs, and RAM mean less sophisticated web and application content.  What is most effect is entering data at home and then loading it to the PDA to take with you. The PDA screens are still very small, they are terrible in direct lighting, color screens are much easier to read than grey scale.  Reading things like e-books or spreadsheets can be a pain in the patoot if you don’t like scrolling. PDA’s and their ‘shoe’ are connected just like any other peripheral to your desktop computer. Files are sent back and forth, called ‘sync-ing’ using PDA specific software.   You can’t expect wireless connectivity right out of the box. In most cases, you need to buy a wireless modem or cable to connect with a digital phone and then sign up for service. If you let the battery run down the odds are good you will lose your data. So if you update it on the PDA, back it up onto an expansion memory or the PC every time you get home. The operating systems aren’t designed to be upgraded so to upgrade you really need to buy a new device. PDA’s don’t read the same files that desktops do. EVERYTHING needs to be converted. Luckily all the software developed to run on PDA’s come with conversion programs to do it for you.  It will take your database or any 2 or 3 dimensional data file and create a “.pdb”  file of it.  Which can go back & forth from the PDA.  You will need to un-convert it in order to fiddle with it on the desktop. You can’t use them with one hand and hold books with the other. You need one for the unit and one for the stylus (penlike object).  Some have KEYS on them, some don’t. The more keys and buttons the smaller the screen and the larger the device. PDA Explanations by people who KNOW what they are talking about   http://www.howstuffworks.com/pda3.htm Databases For as many hand held devices out there, there are as many types of data file handing software.  Stay away from the proprietary kinds.  You want to use software that will use the most common file formats. You don’t want to trade someone for a nice fat little file full of book points and find you have nothing to open it with.  There are three major PDA database programs out there and unlike desktop software it’s all relatively cheap. Jfile $24.95 http://www.land-j.com/jfile.html MobileDB $29.95 http://www.mobilegeneration.com/products/mobiledb/index.html HanDbase $29.99 http://www.ddhsoftware.com/handbase.html?UID=2003012912475324.61.82.64 [old comparison revew but still helpful http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/databases-review.html] Both have free conversion programs that will transform .csv (comma separated value) files into .pdb files. MobileDB has a free direct conversion program for MS Access tables.  I find MS Excel easily saves stuff in .csv format (like .txt format, only with commas.) Document You can’t squeeze a major application into a relatively low-powered device, so be satisfied with the ability to view and edit data. There are things like QuickOfficehttp://www.quickoffice.com/ that allows for MS Excel spread sheet and MS Word conversion.  The new PDA’s have screens with color and better resolution and some just larger that make handling these kinds of documents less painful that the old days. Typing Some of the PDA’s & PALMTOPS come with their own keyboards built in, [they remind of the HP-12C calculator in the 70’s where the device was larger than its manual].  For typing anything larger than a scribble, there are an amazing array of keyboards available these days with more being invented as we speak. Little thumb size keypads, life size fold up keyboards, flexible roll up ones, you name it. [here’s some reviews http://www.pdabuyersguide.com/tips/keyboards.htm] Personally, I just got very good at writing graffitti with a guitar thumb pick. Who has time to dig out an attachment when you just want to write an ISBN? EBooks N’Stuff Once you have this nifty little device rattling around in the bottom of your book bag holding your business stuff, it’s time to load it with stuff that you DON’T need. There are a ton of places to get that too, and some of it is helpful.  [My advice is try it, if you don’t use it blow it away, chance are you won’t remember what the file was for anyway.] http://www.Palmgear.com  is the best place to find PDA specific software on the net.  Shareware, freeware, tryware, it’s all there. (hey that rhymes.) http://www.memoware.com/  is a great place to get docs to run on the software, it will show you huge lists of ebooks, data files, small databases, AND explain what format it’s in and where to get the software to run it.  ‘http://www.memoware.com/?screen=help_format#Doc .  Once you create something yourself you can post it along side, best PGA golf scores, chronological Start Trek bibliography, Bar Drink guides, and the E-version of Crime & Punishment. PDA Bookselling Specific Tools Saved the best for last. [How else would I get you guys to read all the way through?] Bookscout Combining the advent of online access in the palm of your hand with the depreciation of online book values, Dave Anderson has written an extremely valuable software tool, SCOUTPAL http://www.scoutpal.com, this will allow you to enter an ISBN and in one step check book prices on Amazon, both used & new, thus confirming or denying it’s buyability for you.  With only 1 or 2 GOOD buys you can easily pay for this service. [It works on web enabled cell phones too.] Book Collectors Reference Pack Just for giggles last year I collected all the information I needed in my PDA and put it in the JFILE .pdb format http://palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?sid=52833720020602193156&prodID=44720 Publisher First edition identifier: 3600 publishers and their usual method of first edition notation. Book Collecting Glossary: a 500 word dictionary and Author Pseudonyms: over 9000 pseudonyms and their authors When more booksellers get PDA’s, we will surely have more bookselling-oriented software being written, collected & traded. #devices #gadgets

Today’s topic is building loads, almost guaranteed to make your eyes glaze over. however . . . If you have a lot of books, if you are afraid to sleep at night because you fear you will wake up in the basement, if you have no idea at all if your concern is justified, prop your eyelids open and read on. Buildings are designed to safely support anticipated dead loads and live loads. Dead loads are permanent loads (the weight of the building). Live loads are all loads that are not permanent. Live load includes your books, the people who walk through, and the refrigerator that stays for 30 years. Design live loads are specified in building codes. The Uniform Building Code (UBC) is one of the more common codes. There are several others. In the US building codes are adopted by governmental entities. The agency that issues building permits can tell you what building code (if any) is in effect in your area. Some common design live loads: homes: 30 to 40 psf (pounds per square foot) (attics: 0 to 20 psf) retail stores: 75 to 100 psf warehouses: 125 to 250 psf library stack rooms: 150 psf or more Some night when you are up worrying calculate your own uniform live load. That will give you numbers to worry about – which will be a change from your previous unformulated fears. To obtain the total live load estimate the weight of your books (weigh a representative foot long section of books), add the weight of the maximum number of people in the room at any time (weigh a representative person), estimate and add the weight of shelving and other furnishings. When you have the total live load weight divide it by the number of square feet in the room. This is YOUR uniform live load. It may help you decide whether or not you have cause for concern. A few other considerations: The way the load is distributed makes a difference. Heavier than average loads may be okay if they are placed directly above the supporting walls and columns. Lighter than average loads may be a problem if they are concentrated near the center of a room or along a single joist. Buildings may be weakened by deterioration, poor construction or other factors. The load classification of a building may not be obvious. A warehouse designed for light loads and one designed for heavy loads may look alike. Their load capacity is not the same. The above discussion deals only in generalities. Consult a profession engineer or architect for advice about your particular situation. By: Susan Bugher, P.E. email: sebugher@kvi.net

JOURNEY BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN, G.P. Putnam’s, 1963 THE MAGIC GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART, Crown, 1969; Bantam paperback, 1970 THE LEFT-HANDED POLICEMAN, Crown, 1986; Warner Books paperback, 1987 NOSTALGIA KILLS, Crown, 1988 LADY LEFT, Crown, 1990 RICH KIDS, Birchlane, 1992 INTIMATE LIES, Harper Collins, 1995 Novels based on screenplays: THE MEXICAN, Signet, 2001 INSOMNIA, Signet, 2002 Howard Moon Deer Series: GHOST DANCER, Signet, 1998 WARRIOR CIRCLE, Signet, 1999 RED MOON, Signet, 2000 ANCIENT ENEMY, Signet, 2001 Website: http://www.robertwestbrook.com/pub1.html Robert, I understand your book Ancient Enemy was nominated for the Shamus Award as the best private eye paperback of 2002—how exciting! Is this the first award your work has been nominated for? Yes. I didn’t actually win the award, but it was an honor to be nominated. I believe Ancient Enemy is the 4th in the series featuring Howard Moon Deer and ex-cop Jack Wilder. Tell us a bit about Howard Moon Deer—what tribe does he belong to and is he traditional or alienated from tribal ways? And Jack Wilder—I understand he is a blind detective? From what police force? And what is the story on his being blind? Howie is a Lakota Sioux who received scholarships to good schools – Dartmouth and Princeton – and like all Native Americans who leave the rez, he discovered there was no going home again. As a literary device, I deliberately alienated him from his own culture to make him a sharp observer of the life around him – an outsider, a sort of visitor from outer space who sees things with a fresh eye and takes nothing for granted. As for my ex-cop Jack, he was a commander, a high official in the San Francisco Police Department before he lost he eyesight. How did you come up with this combination of American Indian and blind detective? Are they based on anyone you’ve known? Howie, as I’ve said, was created to be an outsider to be better able to observe the main setting of this series: the chic, arty, white émigrés who arrive in New Mexico from other places, usually in a brand new SUV, looking for the latest installment of the American Dream. With Jack, I made him blind because I thought it would be an interesting device to create more suspense – for Jack, simply crossing a busy street becomes an adventure. Also, I wanted him to solve crimes by his brain, not brawn. Have you been associated with any American Indian tribes in any way? How do you research American Indian culture for your books? I live in a town in New Mexico where there is a large Native American population and over the years, I have made a number of friends with the people at the Pueblo here. Also I simply read a great deal to get the information I needed to make Howie plausible. Fortunately, there are many good books on Native America. I believe you used to write police procedurals set in California? Did you live there at the time? And what made you switch to the New Mexico setting? I grew up in Los Angles and spent most of my adult life in Northern California, so it was natural to place my first mystery series in California – the “Left Handed Policeman” books. Ten years ago, my wife and I moved to New Mexico, and eventually I wanted to write about my new home. What got you started writing crime fiction? Were you ever involved in this field of work? I simply like the genre, and enjoy the fact that crime fiction is extremely story driven. I also like the fact that a detective is someone who is searching for the truth of what the world is like around him; he is, in fact, a heroic archetype, one of the “thousand faces of the hero” in the Joseph Campbell sense. I believe you also wrote some non-fiction? On what subjects, and were they based on a particular interest of yours? Your mother was involved at an early age with F. Scott Fitzgerald, wasn’t she? This sounds like it had an enormous effect on your mother. Did it also affect you? I believe she wrote a book about it called Beloved Infidel? And that you also wrote about it in Intimate Lies? My mother was involved with Fitzgerald in Hollywood from 1937 to when he died in her apartment in 1940. It was a difficult relationship, as Scott struggled with alcoholism and his failure as a writer, and it had an enormous effect on my mother – and on me as well, indirectly. I feel that “Intimate Lies” is my best, most deeply-felt book. Anything you want to tell us about this ghost writing you do? I ghost-wrote 8 novels for a TV celebrity I’m not allowed to name. I think of this experience as part of my apprenticeship as a writer – I learned a great deal, and it was strangely freeing to know that someone else’s name would be on the book. Of course, there’s something depressing about it as well: we live in a brand name society where someone famous (like my TV celeb) has a much better chance of selling books than someone non-famous, like me. And what is this bit about you taking a break to “find yourself? What kind of life did you lead then? More or less exciting than that of an author? This was a GREAT time of my life! In my late-20s I built a cabin in a redwood forest, played guitar, studied piano, and did a number of things that had nothing to do with writing . . . but greatly enlarged me as a writer, gave me much more experience to guide me in the mid-1980s when I began publishing again. Do you remember much about the Black List era in Hollywood? Did you know people it affected? Yes, I remember when it was dangerous even to mention Civil Rights – someone might think you were a Communist! I knew a number of people whose lives were changed forever by this terrible time – including Budd Schulberg, who wrote “On the Waterfront,” and ended up testifying for HUAC, and the director Carl Foreman, who had to flee to England when he couldn’t work in Hollywood anymore. How did you get into writing novels based on screenplays? Is it interesting work? I was hired for these jobs by various movie studios to write novels based on screenplays – a marketing device, really. I did “The Mexican” and “Insomnia,” but probably won’t do any more. As a semi-struggling author, I always need work . . . but this was fairly boring, really. I understand that you’ve traveled and lived abroad quite a lot. Which places have you enjoyed the most, and why? And have they had an influence on your work? I love to travel and live outside the United States – we’ve spent a year in Europe, another in China, and most recently a year in Alexandria, Egypt. My wife, Gail, teaches English as a foreign language, and I simply bring my laptop along to continue writing my novels. I haven’t used these foreign settings per se, but living abroad has certainly affected my creative outlook. I believe you’ve also taught writing workshops and have an editing service? Do you enjoy these activities as much as writing? Yes, I love teaching! I’ve been giving workshops on writing mystery novels, as well as writing fiction – I enjoy my students, and I’ve really learned a lot, trying to put what I know about writing into words. Also, from time to time, people send me their manuscripts and I do my best to help them get their projects into shape. Please tell us how you got involved with Addall and Lily and Hup? Was it originally through your wife, Gail? And what work do you do for or with them? And how did you and Gail meet? Gail and Lily met on an airplane to China. Gail currently does customer service for Addall. My own part is to write a weekly column where I review books – a dream job, really, for someone like me who loves books. As for Gail and me, we’ve been together for 25 years – we met in our wild youth in the small town of Pt. Reyes Station on the northern California coast. What made you decide to try your hand at writing originally? Growing up with the myth of F. Scott Fitzgerald hovering over my head, writing has been in my blood since day one. In my youth, I tried a few other things, but somehow I couldn’t escape my fate. I’m a writer, through and through. Have you always written, as while you were growing up and long before trying to get published that first time? Yes, I began writing stories when I was about 10 years old. I knew even then that this was the life for me. What type of worker are you when you write, i.e., do you write at certain times, or for a certain amount of hours daily, in long stretches straight through, as the spirit moves you, or? I like to write best in the mornings, maybe 6 or 7 hours a day. The most important thing, when writing a novel, is to keep at it day after day, whether the spirit moves you or not. Eventually, the pages begin to add up to a book. Do you conceive of an entire story or subject line to be covered in your head before starting to write, or do you get just an idea and sit down, outline it and flesh it out, or? I usually start with an idea, a beginning – a vague feeling of how things will work out, but I don’t quite know how until I’ve stumbled through a first draft. Then I go back, look at what I have, and begin to shape the thing into a novel. It takes me a number of drafts to get it right. Tell us how you first got published, and whether it was difficult that first time. Did you have an agent for that first published piece? Was it a book, an article, a paper, or what? How do you feel about editors? Does it disturb you or comfort you to have someone checking your work pre-publication? Writers NEED to have a good editor, someone who can give an objective point of view. Unfortunately, most New York editors are too busy these days in sales meetings and no longer serve this function. Luckily for me, my wife Gail is my best critic – I give all my manuscripts to her, and she helps me get them into shape. Have you ever been on a tour with one of your books? If so, what is that like? Did you find that it helped increase sales of your book? Yes, I’ve been on book tours. They are probably necessary, but they are hard, hard, hard. I don’t particularly enjoy selling myself. As for books sales, we are living in a very difficult publishing environment where basically 90 percent of American readers read 10 authors. Like everything else in our corporate global world, the big are getting bigger and the small are struggling. In short, this a great time to be an author if you’re Tom Clancy, but a challenge for all the rest of us. Can you tell us a bit about the book you’re currently working on? I understand it is to be a completely different genre for you? I’m working on two books, actually: a spy novel, and a story based loosely on my mother’s life. I’m enjoying experimenting with different sorts of writing than I’ve done before. Any stories about the hazards of trying to make your way as a writer, particularly when starting out? It’s extremely difficult to make a living as a writer these days, but rewarding in its own way. I wouldn’t advise anyone to do it, really . . . yet personally I wouldn’t do anything else. In short, you have to be a bit crazy to give it a try. But if you just happen to be slightly mad, well – it’s splendid to make a living with your imagination. Any advice to aspiring writers on finding an agent or contacting publishers? It’s more difficult to find an agent these days than a publisher. Basically, a new writer needs to get a book that lists literary agents – there are several available – and send prospective agents a GREAT cover letter with maybe 10 or so sample pages of their work. It’s like fishing: you put a line in the water and wait. The main thing is, keep at it – don’t get discouraged! Are you a reader? If so, what types of things do you enjoy reading? I love reading. Just about anything, really – but my favorite reading is the 19th century classics. Tolstoy, Chekov, Thackery, Dickens, Jane Austin . . . I could reread these books forever. I understand that you enjoy opera? Which are your favorites? Jazz piano? Do you play or just enjoy the music? Skiing? Downhill or cross-country? And are you good at it? What other things do you enjoy? With opera, I’m a great Puccini fan. At one time of my life, I studied to be a jazz pianist – I still play whenever I get the chance, and my heroes of the keyboard are Fats Waller and Keith Jarrett. These days, I’m fortunate to live in a famous ski resort and I love to spend winter afternoons going downhill on the slopes. Cooking also is a hobby of mine – very relaxing to chop and stir up fantastic feasts at the end of a busy day. Please tell us anything else about yourself you’d like us to know, either personal or professional, and thank you very much for allowing us to interview you! I feel very fortunate to be a writer, extremely lucky. These days I am trying to use my talent in a positive way to promote peace and oppose the current military adventurism in Iraq. To be an artist is to affirm human values and oppose the dysfunctional deadness of globalism and war. Interview by Shirley Bryant #authors

A review of SIC Magazine, the world’s only magazine devoted to mockery of books, bookselling and the culture of books: a miscellany of bookish jokes, bad puns, fingerpointing, stories & satire. Spring 2003 and Winter 2002 now available. Cost is $6.25 each ppd US, Cash, Check, Paypal, MC, Visa, Amex. Published by J. Godsey Booksellers, 14 Pleasant St., Methuen, MA 01844, 978-725-0073, gods@attbi.com. By: Stephen Windwalker If there is an ordinary experience of reading, especially in this age of fragmented days and the hyper-saturation of cheap cultural stimuli, it is the experience of reading on the run. A dustjacket here, an article there, here a newspaper headline, there an email message … we may resist, but we are driven by many forces, few of them truly friendly, to read “for information” as if our lives and livelihoods depended on it. This type of reading experience could not be more different than the experience that taught me to love reading: the invitation to enter a world made whole and full of wonder by a deity named L. Frank Baum or John R. Tunis or Ralph Ellison or George Eliot. The fiber and rigor and texture of these planned escapes made them well worth the cost of whatever I might miss in the experiential foreground of my life, and sooner or later I discovered that the form and even the occasional polemical excesses of these works of wonder had the power to inform my own living, in ways both serious and frivolous. While I long for such transforming experiences among the too many competing claims that close in on me these days, I do not expect to find them very often, and least of all in magazines. A magazine, after all, is just a magazine. And more often than not magazines are part of the problem, petty parcels in the relentless flow of informational sewage that neither transforms nor illuminates. So it took special resolve to send in my $6.25 one day late last year for the first issue of SIC. My resolve had been forged through regular reading of the “IOBA Monday Item” internet columns penned by SIC’s founder, editor, and publisher, J Godsey, Bookseller. I had a sense of what to expect. SIC has delivered what I hoped for, and more. The first issue was great stuff, and the next even better. We are blessed to have a colleague among us who can so deftly and with such stunning humor make literature of the daily experience — banalities and bathos and all — of the bookseller’s life. Literature? I use the word advisedly, because what Godsey does in the full body of her work including her magazine and her Monday item and even the occasional snarky message board post, is to create a world of bulls-eye verisimilitude every bit as worthy of the printed or digitalized page as the worlds of Sue Miller’s mother-daughter dyads or Salinger’s adolescent chatter or William H. Gass’ wide and happy protagonist. It may or may not a fictive world; by my lights it seems a bit of both. As booksellers and bibliophiles, it is a world we feel we know so well that in a reverie of recognition we claim it for our own. But in truth it is J. Godsey’s world, God help her, and lest we blaspheme and forget her omnipotent place as its she-deity, she takes it upon herself every few paragraphs to come upside our head with biting irony or to split our sides with the kind of humor that not only makes us laugh out loud in the moment but also awakens us, cackling inexplicably, in the middle of the night. As one who ever so earnestly operates a do-good bookselling website and who observes the many helpful if rather dull contributions of important and self-important bookselling experts in message board posts as well as in periodicals and in books such as my own dry tomes, I am immensely pleased that there is at least one among us who could care less about being helpful, and thereby probably provides more meaningful help than all the rest of us combined. I hope and trust that she will be cashing my checks, and yours, for many years to come. (Stephen Windwalker is the author of Selling Used Books Online and Buying Books Online and the founder and proprietor of Windwalker Books and the Online Bookselling Resource Center.)

Secondhandbooks.org is a new site created by UK web developer Tom Chadwin to allow non-book dealers to buy and sell second-hand and antiquarian books online. “I have always loved second-hand books,” says Tom Chadwin, “and long ago, I registered the domain secondhandbooks.org. Life got in the way of the project until December 2002 when I was able to construct the site.” The site charges no commission or advertising fee, and hence is ideal for the hobbyist. “Since the launch of secondhandbooks.org,” says Tom, “I have tentatively asked for feedback and advice from trade expert mailing lists, and have subsequently developed some tools useful to the professional dealer. “Since launch, secondhandbooks has grown to hold over 45,000 volumes, but this represents the tip of the iceberg. I want to use my skills as a web professional to provide a first-class service to a pastime I have enjoyed for many years.” Tom has been involved in design for over ten years, and in online development for five. He has carried out work for clients including Miramax, Lego, Newcastle Airport, and Typhoo Tea. The site can be found at http://www.secondhandbooks.org, and Tom can be contacted at info@secondhandbooks.org. #databases

Is an online bookstore for you? Have you ever considered setting-up a website to promote your bookselling? Have you started building a website but found the task too time consuming? If you have your own website, would you like to add the ability for your visitors to search, browse, and securely order books? Do you want to build your online identity and your own base of customers? If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then Chrisland.com may be able to help you. Who is Chrislands.com ? Chrislands.com is a builder of easy to maintain online bookstores. Chrislands.com designed their service so that a bookseller with no computer programming knowledge could easily update and maintain a bookstore. The key strength of Chrislands built bookstores is that Chrislands manages the technical aspects (e.g. maintaining a secure server, processing of inventory files) of maintaining a bookstore and provides the bookseller the flexibility to manage the business aspects (e.g. setting shipping fees, payment policy, refund policy) of an online bookstore. What does Chrislands.com provide and what computer skills do I need to operate a Chrislands built bookstore? Chrislands provides a total e-commerce solution for operating an online bookstore, everything from providing assistance with domain name registration through setting up a secure server for online order processing. If you can upload your inventory of books to ABE.com* (or other listing service), then you have the computer skills necessary to operate a Chrislands built bookstore. Learning HTML or any other computer programming is not required to operate a Chrislands built bookstore. When did Chrislands.com start building bookstores? Chrislands started building online bookstores during the summer of 2001. Since 2001 Chrislands has continually strived to add new features, improvements and upgrade the stores it has built. Where can pricing information about Chrislands.com be found? Pricing information for Chrislands can be found on the Chrislands Pricing Page . The set-up for a Chrislands built bookstore is $99.99. Monthly fees range from $9.99 a month for stores with less than 2500 books up to $29.99 a month for stores with 30,000 books. The monthly fee for stores with more than 30,000 books is $29.99 plus an additional $5 per each increment of 10,000 books above 30,000 books. Why should I have my own online bookstore? If you want repeat customers and want to build your own base of customers, then you need to provide customers an easy way to find you. A bookseller once compared telling a customer “You can search my books at ABE.com” as being the equivalent of a customer asking a brick and mortar bookseller for a business card and the bookseller handing the customer a phone book and saying “I’m listed under books.” How much customization is possible with a Chrislands built bookstore? Operating a Chrislands built bookstore is similar to leasing a brick and mortar (B&M) bookstore. You can choose the color and provide the images for the online store (paint and add furnishings to a B&M store) but you can’t change the structure of the store. Items such as processing for searches, shopping cart, secure server (heating, cooling, and plumbing in a B&M store) can’t be modified. A sample of Chrislands built bookstores can be seen athttp://www.chrislands.com/shops/builtstores.php. Viewing a few of the listed stores will provide an idea of what can and can’t be modified. The above paragraphs cover the “5 W’s and how” of Chrislands. Listed below are other frequently asked questions about Chrislands. Q: If I have a bookstore, how do I get customers to order from me? A: Bookstores with the most success look at marketing as a continual process. There are a number of low/no cost things you can do to market your bookstore on a continual basis. 1. You can “market” your bookstore by including your web address in bookmarks, business cards, flyers, email signature lines and other low cost methods. The key is to make it easy for your customers to find your web address. 2. Another method for independent booksellers is “cross-selling”. If someone orders a book from you through ABE.com*, then in your confirmation email to the customer you may want to recommend another book that might interest (same author, same subject, etc…) the buyer and provide them the web address to that book at your bookstore. For example a buyer may order a book about spices and in your follow up email you could state “I have a great book on food and flavors listed for sale at http://www.tarmans.com/?page=shop/item&si=9161 or you could say “I have many great cook books. You might want to browse my other cookbooks at http://www.tarmans.com/?page=shop/cname&cname=cook+books Even if the buyer doesn’t buy the recommend books you have let the buyer know how to find your bookstore. Online consumers still fear fraud. After you have completed a sale to a buyer’s satisfaction, you have earned their trust. Customers are much more likely to buy from you a second time, because the fear of fraud is reduced or eliminated. The key is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to find you when they are ready to order more books. 3. Offering discount and coupons is a great incentive to get customers to order from your bookstore. You may want to advertise a 5% “first order” discount code on your bookstore homepage. When the customer checkouts they enter “firstorder” in the coupon code box and are rewarded with a 5% discount at checkout. You can then follow up with a “second order” coupon to your customer. If you use delivery confirmation, then you know when the customer receives the book and you can follow up with a “Delivery Confirmation” email. In the “Delivery Confirmation” email you can tell the customer that the post office has confirmed delivery of the book and that you hope they are happy with the purchase. Additionally, you can add in the email that you are offering a 10% discount (coupon code = second) if the customer places a second order from your store. Offering the coupon after delivery has been confirmed is the best time to offer the coupon because that is when the customer will be most satisfied with their purchase. The customer may still have some reservations about the purchase until the book has been delivered. Q: I already have a website. Can I integrate Chrislands service into my current website. A: No and Yes. No. Chrislands cannot be inserted into your current website. Chrislands is a stand-alone system and you cannot modify the basic functioning of a Chrislands built bookstore. Yes. You can integrate a Chrislands built bookstore by linking together your current website with a Chrislands built bookstore. The two URLs listed below show how the Chrislands portion of a bookstore can be seamlessly integrated into one web site. http://www.AnglophileBooks.com and http://www.AnglophileBooks.net AnglophileBooks already had a website she built and liked, but wanted to add a search and ordering capability to her site. She maintains her original site (anglophilebooks.com) but has added links to her “back end processing” (Anglophilebooks.net) that allows her customers to search her books and complete orders online. Q: Is there a long-term commitment when signing up for a Chrislands built bookstore? A: No. Chrislands works on the equivalent of a month-to-month lease. Q: Can I upload my inventory to a Chrislands built bookstore just like I upload to the book listing services? A: Yes. If you use BookRouter.com or BookTrakker, then there will be no additional work to upload to a Chrislands built bookstore. If you use another database program, then uploading to your bookstore will be the equivalent of uploading to another service. You can learn more about Chrislands at the following web pages. Chrislands Home Page Benefits of Chrislands Chrislands Frequently Asked Questions Chrislands Pricing You can contact Chrislands customer service with questions at info@chrislands.com *ABE.com is the property of the Advanced Book Exchange Inc. #chrislands #services

Currently, we are offering a free 3 month trial period for booksellers who would like to participate. There is no setup fee, and no obligation, and after the three months are over, we offer an outstanding guarantee for our members: monthly fees are based on the number of books listed with us, or 15% of monthly sales through us — whichever is less. For information on our services, fees, guarantee, or to sign up, please visit http://www.biblio.com/listing_info.php. In addition, I am further pleased to announce that we have recently purchased  Bookopoly, a well-established source for buying and selling books. We are very excited at this opportunity, and are working to improve Bookopoly’s services, as well as looking for ways in which we can integrate some of the functionalities and features of biblio.com. I very much look forward to continuing to serve the online community of bookselling through our new ventures, and welcome the opportunity to answer any questions. Brendan Sherar President and CEO biblio.com, Inc. used – rare – out-of-print – hard-to-find books from independent booksellers worldwide http://www.biblio.com http://www.bookopoly.com http://www.searchbiblio.com #bibliocom

Table of Contents Free Trial Offer from the Americana Exchange Note from the Editor From the President Tom Sawyer – BookWriter Web Charles Vilnis – BookRouter & Allusive Information Systems Genuine Fakes: Mark Hoffman Godsey’s Ravings David Klappholtz, Book Collecting from a Collector’s viewpoint Collecting Lost Race Novels Six Crises and a Challenge The More Things Change . . . Where we have been and where we are going in the Online Book Worl Eloise Wilkin – author, illustrator and doll designer Neglected Treasures – Overlooked writers and books Neglected Americana: The Woman’s Rights Movement Britannica 11 Give Me That Old-Time Religion” or, Finding Your Way through the Maze of American Christian Publications Mystery Reference Shelf or Two Ephemeral Assays—The Good Book Fall 2002 MARIAB Book Fair: Good Finds and Growing Pains Midwest Bookhunters Book Fair, dePaul University, Chicago 15th Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair (SABF) Sacramento, CA – 9th Annual Central Valley Antiquarian Booksellers Association Book Fair Book Seminars International Internet Book Links IOBA Q & A Column Author/Book Review: Patty Friedman Author/Book Review Joe L. Blevins – the Texas Republic Lily Chen – AddAll.com Meta-site Search Engine Milo Parmoor – Bibliopoly.com The Aniquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) Database Jack Benson – Bibliophile.net Bookbase Brendan Sherar – Searchbiblio.com Meta-site Search Engine Reincarnation: Bookquarters to WantedBooks.com BiblioDirect Update Global Book Mart Relaunch

The online library is a searchable database of the best-known Americana bibliographies as well as some not as well known resources. Among the best known are Sabin, Evans, and Church. Not as well known are Bradford and Pilling. Then there are other types of resources, like the catalogs of Thomas Streeter’s collection, the Maggs Brothers catalogs from the 1920’s, and many volumes from the Depression era American Imprints Inventory. And, the AE will continue to add new references to the database at the rate of approximately one every two weeks. The AE has taken a different approach to building its database than is typical. All bibliographic references are broken into fields, such as author, title, printing date, printing location and up to 16 more, before being entered by hand. The result is a database that can be searched by any of these fields or combination of fields, providing a highly-targeted result. This is in contrast to the scanned facsimile database which can only perform a keyword search of the entire listing, often resulting in too many off target responses, such as you get with an internet search. The AE Database immediately gives the smaller bookseller, or any bookseller without Americana bibliographies or with an incomplete set, the tools needed to fully understand and describe his or her titles. It can save a bookseller who does not specialize in Americana from letting an obscure but valuable piece slip away for a fraction of its worth. However, it is equally useful for the bookseller with a complete set of resources, and particularly for the person responsible for writing catalog or online descriptions. What is now a long search through dozens of volumes takes only seconds, as the database scans all resources for results and comes back with a response in about 2-4 seconds. The cataloger’s job is then made even easier because descriptions can be simply cut and pasted into a catalog page, rather than rewritten by hand. The second subscription service offered by the Americana Exchange is its auction notices. The AE’s bibliographers examine book auctions worldwide, searching for listings within the field of Americana. They then break these listings down to categories within Americana, roughly 75 in all, and post the lots based on this categorization. What this does is allow the bookseller with an interest in Americana to quickly locate titles in the field coming up at forty plus auctions worldwide, and then find listings within a specialty. A dealer who specializes in Civil War material can find material of interest quickly and efficiently, without having to search through dozens of thick catalogs and lengthy website listings. The AE services are priced to be available to everyone, even the bookseller for whom rare books or Americana are only a small part of their business. An annual subscription to the database is $59.75 a year, and to both the database and auction notices is just $74.50 annually. However, access to both of these services is free until December 15, 2002, by simply going to the site and signing up for a free membership. While the open trial period ends on November 25, IOBA members and IOBA newsletter readers can extend the free trial period by entering the code – ioba2002 – in the field marked “Promotion Code” when they sign up for free membership. Booksellers can fully test all of the features before deciding whether to subscribe. To try the AE services or learn more about them, go to http://www.americanaexchange.com. Mike Stillman URL: http://www.americanaexchange.com #AmericanaExchange

This is quite an exciting issue, to me. We have the development of a wonderful new (and easy) way to show our books on the web and increase our customer base, several new and fascinating articles to add to our reference department ranging from mysteries to religious works to a new online Americana reference service to the Brittanica 11 to an exploration of Mark Hofmann’s forgeries. We have coverage of several book fairs, and announcements from and interviews with several commercial book databases and book seminars. Plus, our first ever interview of a book collector—there is much for us to learn from the “other side of the street.” We also have author/book reviews: one on Texas history and the other a darkly comic look at family life. We continue the series on ephemera, start a series on woman’s suffrage, learn about Lost World books and authors, explore the works of some neglected writers and illustrators, and we get some good advice on bookselling and the internet from one of our own who is also an author, from IOBA’s president, and from the text of the keynote speech at the CO Book Seminar. We also get to “meet” the developer of an upload service that saves its users much time and sanity. Of course we have more of Godsey’s Ravings, and we have our informative Q&A section. Finally, we learn about the talented people behind and the services of a couple of the meta-search sites. All in all, enough to keep you reading for some time. I hope you enjoy this issue, and I wish you all good sales and/or collecting, a great Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year — and peace for all in our world. Shirley Bryant editor@ioba.org P.S. Take a look at our new classified ad pages . We’ve just started this program and you’ll only see ads right now from IOBA members, but it is open to all booksellers and collectors.